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What is it Like to be Alive?

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This is a Question as Old as Time

There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. Many people feel like what they’re going through really isn’t living. Life has always been full of difficulties. It’s up to us to decide if we’re going to live life or curl up in a corner.

A woman whose son was gone to war received a visit from the Army, informing her that her son had been killed by a land mine. She was uncontrollably distraught for days. On the third day she received a phone call…it was her son. HE WAS ALIVE! The earlier message was a mistake, the son she thought was dead was alive.

This is the Easter message…SURPRISE HE’S ALIVE!

When the women went to Jesus’ tomb they were filled with grief and sadness. They had watch Jesus die on the cross just a few days earlier. When they got there the tomb was empty and an angel told them that He was alive. They were very happy. The angel told them to go spread the word and they did. Matthew 28:1-10.

HALLELUJAH HE’S ALIVE!

We don’t understand the value of LIFE until we are sitting by a tomb. We don’t understand the value of LOVE until we have stared hatred in the face. We don’t understand the power of HOPE until we have experienced the darkest despair.

Easter is all about life. God’s grace is found in the empty tomb. It is the victory HOPE over despair, LOVE over hate and LIFE over death. For Christians, every day is Easter.

Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. Hallelujah, He shall rein for ever and ever.

Check out Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus here. World’s Largest Virtual Hallelujah Chorus

Life is Like Removing a Clothesline Pole

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You Never Know How Big the Hole Will be Until You Start Digging

Have you ever had a vision for something that you weren’t sure what needed to be done or how to do it? If you’re not careful planning and analyzing can lead to overthinking and overthinking is just another word for procrastination.

Overthinking has kept me from accomplishing things too many times.

My assistant Cathleen had a vision for creating a safe place in the small back yard for her young daughter to play. This vision included a trampoline and swing set. The problem was two clothesline poles in the way. Compounding the problem…they were set in concrete.

She started digging around the first one. She had no way of knowing how much concrete was around the pipe or how deep in the ground it went. After a few days of digging and more concrete than expected, the hole was getting pretty big.

She did not let overthinking stop her from moving forward with her vision. 

Some people would say that in her youth and lack of experience she bit off more than she could chew. She could have done more research and procrastinated over this for a while. She could have saved up some money and hired a professional. She did neither…she started digging.

The importance of getting this play area ready for Luna was the determination she needed to push toward the vision. After digging for a while, she could have quit, but she didn’t. She had an objective, she knew what it was, and nothing was going to stop her.

Determination and action kept her moving forward.

There was a point in the process where it was evident that she wasn’t physically going to get the pipe and concrete out of the hole. After some re-evaluation and research, it was decided to cut the pipes off. She needed some help with this, and I happened to have a cutting torch. After this was done the dirt was put back in the hole burying the concrete and a trampoline was set up.

Cathleen’s project is no different than any other endeavor we face. It may turn out to be bigger and more time consuming than expected. There may be unanticipated circumstances that raise questions and create doubt. We may need to incorporate some help to achieve our goal.

Moving forward and not overthinking is critical to getting things done.

By nature, I’m a thinker and planner. Too often I procrastinate by overthinking everything. This is compounded by a long list of things to think about and plan for. There are so many people to help and things that need done. It’s easy to be overwhelmed when standing in the shadow of a huge mountain that needs moved.

What makes the mountain ominous is trying to figure out every detail that we’re going to encounter before we start. Are we going to run into rock, how much, what will we do with it when we do…and on and on? Thinking keeps us from moving anything and the mountain just stands there.

When Cathleen saw her vision of Luna’s place to play, she started digging. She didn’t let the size of the mountain stop her. We need to take a lesson from Cathleen.

This isn’t to say that planning isn’t important, because it is. If we don’t have a plan the vision gets stuck as a dream. Like building any construction project, you need to have a plan, but nothing gets built until we move some dirt.

If you’re going to achieve your goals and accomplish your vision, you need to do some shoveling today.

Knowing the End of One Story in the Beginning Is A Good Thing

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How You Read Other Stories Is A Personal Preference

There are two differing opinions of how to read a book. Some people start by reading the last chapter first to see how the story ends. Others will start at the beginning and not read the end until…well the end. Whichever way you want to read is fine except for one specific story.

There is one story that you should know how it ends when it begins.

Knowing how the story in the Bible ends is critical to our own story and how it will end. We are all living our own stories surrounded by other stories in the middle of a bigger story. These stories are being written continuously every minute of every day.

We can write our story however we want, it’s up to us.

The important thing to remember is the importance of choosing to write it rather than letting someone else write it for us. Pastor Lee referred to two different stories in his message Sunday.

The first you are probably familiar with; it’s the story of Rip Van Winkle. In this story, written by Washington Irving and published in 1819, Rip Van Winkle falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains. When he wakes up 20 years later, he has slept through the American Revolution.

After he goes back to town everything has changed. His wife is dead, his kids are grown, the country now has a President rather than a King. Nothing is as it was when he went to sleep.

Too much of the time we sleep through life and let it happen to us.

The other story that he told was less popular. It’s a story about a Mexican priest, Sergio Gutierrez Benitez, who supported an orphanage for 23 years as the masked professional wrestler, “Friar Storm”. The La Casa Hogar orphanage became home to 270 children. Father Benitez chose to write his story, taking an active role and changing other people’s stories at the same time.

We can let life happen to us, or we can choose the life we want to happen.

Too often when we choose to write our own story, we forget to check with the Author of all stories to see if we are following His outline. Too often we don’t listen before we think or speak. We assume we have everything figured out and just start blabbering. This isn’t the best way to write a story.

Just like Peter, in Matthew 17:1-5 when he was on the mountain with Jesus. While he, James, and John were standing there Jesus became white as light and Moses and Elijah appeared. Then Peter began talking and making suggestions to Jesus without listening. While he was talking, God spoke and said, “This is my Son…Listen to Him!”

We need to be quiet and listen.

We have control over how our story is going to be written. Listen to God, study your life’s outline and right a good story.

What Are the Rules That You Live By?

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They Will Be the Building Blocks in Your Life’s Foundation

 

 

 

We all make choices everyday about how we will live our lives and how we will treat those around us.


Often, we adults make things more complicated than they need to be and it’s really pretty simple. All we really need to know we learned in kindergarten, just ask Robert Fulghum.

 


Here’s a partial list:

  • Share everything.
  • Play fair.
  • Don’t hit people.
  • Put things back where you found them.
  • CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
  • Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
  • Say you’re SORRY when you HURT somebody.
  • Wash your hands before you eat.
  • Flush.
  • Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

 


These are just good common-sense things that will be great foundation blocks for building a better world.

 


We can make a big difference by doing small things, even though at the time it might not seem like it. The story of the young boy and the starfish is a good parable that makes this point.

 


“One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked, he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.
Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, “I’m saving these starfish, Sir”.
The old man chuckled aloud, “Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?”
The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, “I made a difference to that one!”

 

 

Use good blocks for building your life.

 

How to Achieve Your Desired Life Results

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Not to be Confused with Goal Setting

 

 

I think most of the time goal setting is seen the same way as budgeting – restricting, confining, controlling, restraining, and limiting. This is the opposite of how either should be seen.

 


Both should serve as a plan for intentionally building the life of your dreams.


Do you have a plan for what you want your dream life to be? I bet you do, we all do. Sometimes, for whatever reason, we choose to ignore these dreams, to push them down and forget them. Maybe it’s because we’ve had our dreams shattered or after years of waiting, we just gave up. Whatever the reason, you can decide to make that dream a reality or give up on it.

 


I remember years ago, before I knew about Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University, I didn’t like the idea of budgeting. I thought it would keep me from being free to spend money or have fun. Then after going through the class and beginning to budget, I found it to be the opposite. I then had a plan for spending, it gave me more freedom than I had before. Budgeting actually gave me more control of my money.


Goal setting can give you more control of your life.


Our perception of words is part of the problem. We connect our own experiences with words which creates our own individual perspective. Goals is one of those words. Like budgeting, goals can feel constraining. Like budgeting, the opposite is the case.

 

 


Look at the negative, comedic way New Year’s resolutions are viewed. This is a good example of how the lack of intentionality is misleading. When we get caught up in the rhetoric we will just float through life without a plan. If we don’t bother to dig down and build our lives on a solid foundation, we will be blown in whatever direction the wind blows us.

 


A goal is a desired result. A desired result sounds good.


I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t want to achieve their desired results. If we are to live this life we have been given to the fullest, we need to be intentional to do all that we can to achieve the results God has planned for us.


 

Another problem with goal setting is that it can become overwhelming. Most of us have way more dreams and goals than we can ever get done. We built this mountain of things that we want to do. We’re the ones who let it get this big and we’re the ones who can make it smaller. To keep it from feeling so daunting we need to focus on one shovel full at a time rather than the whole thing.


We can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the size of our mountain.

 

It’s also important to remember that if we always set our goals small, we will never grow. We need to be growing and learning all the time. If your goals are always reached, then they aren’t big enough.

 


God has put a life dream in each of us. If we want to achieve it, we need to plan it. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what matters is that you do it. The mountain can be moved, it isn’t too big.


What matters is to align our plan with God’s and start shoveling.

What Is the Most Important Journey?

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That Would Be the Journey of Salvation

Life’s journeys can be hard, some harder than others.

In the 1065 Henry IV became king at the young age of 15. His lack of experience and wisdom at this young age including dealing with various rebellions found him in a difficult time.

One of these conflicts involved the church and Pope Gregory VII. Pope Gregory VII asserted that the College of Cardinals could appoint popes, bishops and other high-ranking church officials. These positions came with income producing lands and other perks. This caused a power struggle between the Emperor and the church.

In 1076 the young Emperor was excommunicated by Pope Henry and the bishops. Being excommunicated meant that the Emperor was banned from the church and taking communion. In the middle ages this was like closing the door to Heaven.

Following the suggestion his adversaries, the young Emperor decided to meet with the Pope at the castle in Canossa. This journey through the Alps in the middle of winter is known as the “Road to Canossa” or the “Humiliation of Canossa”.

Once the Emperor reached the castle, the Pope refused him entry. Henry IV stood outside the castle gate for three days bare footed wearing nothing but a hair-shirt (traditional monk’s robe). Finally, on January the 28th Henry was allowed to enter. That evening the Pope and the Emperor shared communion signaling the end of the excommunication.

Another hard life journey.

Jesus’ also had a hard journey, it included four stops along the way. The first was in the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed to have this suffering taken away. He knew how hard the was going to be. The second stop was Gabbatha. Otherwise known as the place where Jesus stood trial in front of Pontius Pilot. Third is Galgotha, the place where He was crucified. The great thing is that the journey doesn’t stop here. The final place is the garden tomb where Jesus was buried. This is where His journey ends and ours begins.

Our journey to salvation is much easier than these. Jesus did the hard part. All we have to do is believe, get on and enjoy the ride. This doesn’t mean that there won’t be rough places along the way, but it’s much easier with Jesus showing us the path. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 tells us about the journey.

It’s definitely a trip worth taking.

Principles Are Like A GPS For Life

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They Help Us Get Where We Want to Go

Making our way through the difficulties of life can be hard. There are bumps, unexpected turns, detours and road blocks. When we start the journey, we think we know exactly where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. Surprise!

If we just had a map and GPS for this road trip called life it would be so much easier. Well what do you know…we do. Life’s map is the Bible and the GPS is our core values and principles.

When we pick up a map for the first time, we don’t understand everything about it. The more we study and use the map to get us where we’re going, the better we get at making the trip. The Bible is the same.

We all have core values and principles whether we know it or not. Like a GPS in our car or smart phone if we aren’t aware of it or don’t put in the coordinates it won’t help us get where we want to go.

Core values are the foundation on which we conduct ourselves. In an ever-changing world – core values are consistent. They underlie our work, how we interact with others, and help us to fulfill our mission. A principle is the fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning. Once we become aware of these core values and principles…99% of our decisions are already made.

This week’s Scripture (road map), Luke 6:27-38, has always been hard for me to fully understand. It talks about loving your enemies, letting them slap you on both cheeks, giving them your coat and your shirt, giving things to them and not asking for them back. It says love your enemies and do good to them. I always felt that I had treated others the way I wanted to be treated. What I figured out from this week’s sermon was that I never really have had to deal with an “enemy”.

When Pastor Lee told a story of a Michael Weisser a Jewish Rabbi who in 1991 was harassed in Lincoln, Nebraska, by Mr. Trapp, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the meaning of the word enemy took on a whole new meaning. After getting hateful phone calls, Rabbi Weiser turned things around by calling Mr. Trapp and harassing him back with love. One day the Weisser’s phone rang and it was Mr. Trapp. He said, ‘I want to get out of what I’m doing and I don’t know how’. This is how you’re supposed to love your enemies.

I’ve never experienced someone treating me like this. I hope that if I do, I will be able to “love my enemy” this way.

When people filled with hate haven’t found their life road map and GPS, they don’t understand when they are confronted with love. The best way to help them is to “Love Them Until They Ask Me Why”.

Living Life Well Is All About Perspective

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What Ever Your Situation – Attitude Makes All the Difference

Perspective is “a particular way of viewing things that depends on one’s experience and personality”. Our individual perspective effects every part of our lives. It’s up to us to decide how we are going to view things.

As a part of preparing for the new year, I reviewed the past one. In many aspects this past year was a dismal failure. Revenue was considerably less than our target. It was even less than the previous several years. We didn’t get anywhere near the blog traffic that we planned to. It would be easy to focus on those negative things and let them become my perspective.

At the same time there were several positive things that happened during the past year. While the financial numbers were down, we paid off more debt than any previous year. My goal was to write and post at least one solution each week and I did.

Years ago, I would have fixated on the negative and not seen the positive. This disappointment would have been the way I viewed things. This unproductive attitude would have been blocking my moving forward to bigger and better things. This was not any way to live life well.

At a point nine or ten years ago, I decided I was tired of living in this negative funk. There was no one specific thing that caused this shift, but rather a collection of small things. They consisted of reading, learning, journaling, praying and believing. Over those years I didn’t realize the difference that was happening but now looking back I can see and feel a major difference.

We have the power to choose what our attitude is going to be. With this power we can change our perspective. The 5th Decision in The Traveler’s Gift is, “Today I Will Choose to be Happy”. In this Joyful Decision, Anne Frank says, “Our very lives are fashioned by our choice. First we make choices. Then our choices make us.”

I’m not saying that it’s some easy flip a switch kind of magic. It’s hard work, but worth it. If you fall down, you get back up. When you fall down the next time you get back up again. We’ve all seen kids learning to walk. They don’t try it once, fall down, and never try again. They’re persistence is what makes it happen. They keep trying over and over, one small step at a time, until they succeed. They don’t give up.

With it being the New Year many of the blogs and podcasts that I follow have focused on planning and goal setting. One of those was Ray Edwards interviewing Cliff Ravenscraft about how to make our resolutions stick. In the interview they talk about how we may not have control over the circumstances, but we always have control over how we will choose to respond or what actions we will take. To make this point they use Nick Vujicic as an example of perseverance. He was born with no arms or legs and has achieved and accomplished more things than most people. If you feel that you had a rough year and things didn’t go like you had planned, you need to quit whining and watch these videos.

Perseverance.  The story of Nick Vujicic

If we keep moving forward and continue getting back up after we’re knocked down anything is possible…just ask Nick.

nick vujicic on OPRAH SHOW

I will persist without exception.

How to Live A Well-Balanced Life

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Finding and Maintaining the Balance in Everything

 

I initially wrote about Using Core Values as My Life Filter last year. The focus of that post was the importance these CORE VALUES have in providing me with insight to who I am and more importantly, who I aspire to be. In that post I listed these twelve core values and said I would write about each in later posts.


Currently have written about:

• Honoring God in all that I do
• Paying attention to detail
• Spending time wisely
• Never being satisfied with mediocrity
• Taking off the blinders and being more aware
• Intentional action and again

Today’s core value is FINDING AND MAINTAINING THE BALANCE IN EVERYTHING.

I listened to a Story Brand podcast recently in which Tim Arnold’s point was that tension was a better description of this value than balance. He points out that “we tend to be binary thinkers. We assume things have to be one way or the other”. This was his point about the term balance when used in this context. Often the word balance creates the picture of an instrument with two sides used for weighing.

Sometimes there are only two choices. When choosing between right and wrong or good and evil, I believe this is the case. I agree with Tim that too often we tend to stop our thinking at only two choices and miss all of the out of the box opportunities that are out there.

I see balance as something that involves a lot more than two things.

The Merriam-Webster definition of balance is extensive and covers a variety of different areas including people, weight, stability, accounting, mental and emotional. This is more the way I think of balance.

I see BALANCE as large platform sitting centered on top of a small point. Without anything on the platform, it sits level. When one thing is placed on top of the platform near the center, things go pretty well, and it stays relatively level. As more things are put on the platform and things begin to be crowded from the center it starts to get heavier at different areas. This causes the platform to lean. If one heavy thing or too many things are moved too far from the center the platform will tip far enough that things falls off. Keeping things setting on the platform is all about weight and location.

Our lives are like this platform. God has set our platform balance perfectly on this point and given us the responsibility of keeping it there. The difficult part of this obligation is the number of things we get to choose from to put on our platform. The choices are endless. There is spiritual, family, work, friends, fun, community, etc. and each of these areas are full of an endless number of specific things that we can put on our platform. Some things carry more weight than others. As we go through life the things we have setting on our platform will and should change.


FINDING AND MAINTAINING THE BALANCE of our platform is the responsibility given us. Will we be perfect at it…no. Can we learn and get better at it…YES!

Whether you use the word balance, tension or something else to describe this endeavor is less important than being aware of it and actively keeping your platform as level as you can.

The Importance of Intentionality for Building Your Dream Life

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Because It Isn’t Going to Magically Build Itself

For years people have asked me where I came up with the business system and procedures that I use. As I thought about it, I realized that my business and life had been developing for years without much intentionality.

After my accident in 2012 it caused me to think about what my life was and what I had expected it to be. Not that my life was terrible before, it just wasn’t what I had envisioned it to be. I had been living without a clear plan and there was so much more that I wanted to accomplish.

At that point I decided to become more intentional. I’ve always been a planner but it’s sad that it took a hit in the head for me to realize the importance of being intentional about the plan.

When we’re young the tendency is to think that we’ll have all the time we need. There’s no hurry to plan for the future…we’ll get around to that someday. Then one day we wake up and realize life is flying by and we haven’t done all those things we wanted to.

 

You don’t have to wait until you’re smacked in the head to become intentional.

 

While explaining my business operating system to my team, it became evident that even though I now have an intentional plan, it needed to be written down. When working alone, I would just do the next thing that needed done. I didn’t need a written plan, so I thought. Not only do I need a written plan to communicate to my team, but it helps me to be clearer.

Think of your life or business as a construction project. It all begins with a dream. You can see the vision of the completed project in your mind. The tricky part is getting that dream out of your head and making it a reality? Having it drawn out will let you see if it looks like your dream or not. It’s better and easier to make changes and corrections during the planning, rather than the construction. It improves the clarity of communication between all parties involved.

It’s also a good idea to have the help of a professional when drawing out your plans or building your dream. Their experience, knowledge and skill, can save you time and money. Done well, it will make the entire process more enjoyable.

In last week’s post, it once again was reinforced how important intentional planning for the future is and how rarely it is done.

Having a clear picture of what it is that you want your life or business to look like when you’re finished building it, takes intentionality.

Be intentional.


Don’t wait to be smacked in the head to get intentional about planning for the future. Let me know what areas you need some help with planning or building the life or business of your dreams